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30 November 2022PatentsStaff Writer

Mixed fortunes for Nokia in German patent clash

Court found that smartphone maker did not infringe tech company’s patent | But another later ruled in favour of Nokia | Global litigation in motion over firm’s patent portfolio | Oppo.

The Dusseldorf Regional Court has found in favour of Chinese smartphone maker Oppo in its patent battle with Nokia.

Late last week, the court handed down a final judgment, finding that Oppo had not infringed Nokia’s non-standard-essential patent.

The patent in dispute (EP27,28,964) is called a “distributed multiradio controller”, as  reported by FOSS Patents.

Earlier this month, the Delhi High Court refused Nokia’s attempt to obtain a deposit from Oppo as the SEP infringement clash plays out in India.

In August, the Dusseldorf court stayed two Nokia v Oppo patent cases, to enable the Federal Patent Court to rule on their validity.

The two patents at issue in these cases (EP17,41,183 and EP17,28,352) are both implementation patents rather than standard-essential patents (SEPs).

However, despite the stay, the Munich Regional Court found that Oppo had infringed the ‘352 patent—a day after the Dusseldorf ruling favouring Oppo was handed down. This patent discloses secure data transfer of user data between devices using asymmetric encryption.

Nokia, in a statement shared with WIPR, said: “Courts in Germany, the Netherlands and the UK have all found Oppo has infringed Nokia’s patented technologies in its smartphones. It’s time for Oppo to renew its licence on fair terms.”

In August, Oppo and its subsidiary OnePlus stopped selling its smartphones and smartwatches in Germany after losing a patent clash with Nokia concerning 4G SEPs.

The Munich Regional Court had concluded that Oppo had infringed two Nokia patents: EP2,080,193 (which discloses an improved pitch lag estimation in audio signals for audio coding) and EP3,557,917 (which discloses the flexible allocation of resources with “keep awake messages” in discontinuous communications).

WIPR has approached Oppo and the Munich Regional Court for comment.

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